Weekly Review USA is an inciteful, hardhitting and educational review of the hottest stories in the national media once a week.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Republican Mantra Needs to Change

There is a Republican mantra regarding illegal immigration that needs to change. It goes like this, “We need to build the fence, guard the border and crack down on companies that hire illegals.”

Hurray for the first two but not the third.

Democrats have their own convoluted mantra that translates into amnesty. Strangely, it also includes cracking down on companies that hire illegals – as if it is the fault of a business owner that our borders are porous. This goes along with their worn thin, politics-of-envy argument that blames everything on corporations (and President Bush).

Barack Hussein Obama’s website says that, “Obama will remove incentives to enter the country illegally by cracking down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s website says that she believes that we should have, “strict penalties for those who exploit undocumented workers.” Exploit here of course means “to hire.”

Thankfully John McCain’s website makes no comment on penalizing business, but rather puts the blame on Washington, “Border security and our failed immigration system are more examples of an ailing Washington culture in need of reform to regain the trust of Americans.

There is a stark contrast in the approaches taken. McCain wants to fix the problem while HRC and BHO want a police state that will nail Americans, while encouraging the illegal activity of Mexico, a foreign country.

There is a lot to love about Mexico – Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, oil, their hard working people down there and up here, but there is also a lot to despise – their government first and foremost. They enforce their Southern borders in a Gestapo-like fashion, but encourage the illegal crossing of ours.

The Mexican government has worked to make illegal immigration here a whole lot easier.

• It plans to produce 70,000 maps marking main roads and water tanks for people wanting to cross illegally into the US, while arguing that, "The only thing we are trying to do is warn them of the risks they face and where to get water, so they don't die," at least according to Mauricio Farah of Mexico's Human Rights Commission.

• the Yucatan government (a state of Mexico) also produces educational materials (a handbook and DVD) to instruct its citizens on how to cross the border and how to avoid notice as an illegal immigrant once the border has been crossed. This guide also tells immigrants where to find health care, how to get their kids into U.S. schools and how to send money home.

• They even distribute a comic book which instructs illegal immigrants on how to sneak across the border.

The only thing I am surprised about is that they do not pay coyotes with petro-dollars.

The argument on why illegals pour across the border is because that there is an economic incentive to do so. As if it’s our fault. Leaving aside that it’s easy, that many of them think a good chunk of the Southwestern United States is actually theirs, and that the Mexican government is hopelessly corrupt, how do you dis-incentivize the economic incentive? How about this, why not give American companies a $1,500 a head bounty for each illegal alien that they turn over to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)?

How’s that for out-of-the-box thinking? The good news is that the “investment” is paltry compared to how much illegals are already costing in crime, social services, health care, education, law enforcement, military, environmental, etc. . . Speaking of that laundry list, why not also allow hospitals, schools and social services to turn away illegals? And, if we have gone that far, why not declare that the fruit of an illegal act is also illegal – in other words no grant of citizenship to children born of illegals.

The incentive to illegally come will evaporate in a few short nights, the blame will be taken off Americans and placed on the Federal and Federale Governments where it ought to be, and conservatives can have a new mantra, “Build the fence, guard the border and give a bounty.” Come to think of it, we could shorten the whole thing and switch from a mantra to a chant, “We want a bounty hunter! We want the Dog!” (That would be Bounty Hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman of television fame.)

3 comments:

It sounds like you want to reward companies who are already hiring illegal immigrants. So the companies win on both ends of the deal. They earn more money by hiring cheap labor, and then they get a bonus when they decide to report illegals to ICE. I suspect for many of these companies, the gain they get from having illegals work for them a lower wages far outweighs the monetary reward you propose to grant them for turning them in.

I totally disagree with Owen. There have to be disincentives to illegally crossing the borders... There are already bounty hunters for those who are running from the law within our country, why not also have them deployed for those who are in this country illegally? Whether the bounty hunters are the owners of a company or are simply people willing to focus on turning in illegals, you can bet that the fear of repercussions would begin to ripple throughout that community. Mexico doesn't allow us to cross illegally...and you know that they enforce that...so why should we be forced to turn a blind eye???